U.S Immigiration – Bosnian War Suspects Could Be Deported

As reported on the Voice of America network, the U.S. Department of Justice wants witnesses to step forward who are willing to pursue claims regarding atrocities committed during the 1990’s Bosnian war. Especially the Srebrenica massacre, where Muslims were paraded in front of cameras waiting to be massacred by Serb paramilitaries. The UN and later the U.S. stepped in to bring the conflict to an end.

IBTimes Report: The main factions embroiled in 13 months of civil war in former Yugoslavia were the Serbs, Croats and Muslims. Both the Serbs and Croats in Bosnia claimed Muslims were not a genuine nationality, but rather Serbian or Croatian in addition to their religion.

A three-year study carried out by the Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo determined in 2007 that some 65 percent of those killed in the Bosnian war were Muslims, according to BBC News. But the Serbs, who sought to remove Bosnian Muslims to create a Serb-dominated state, had more blood on their hands than any other group, according to the New York Times. The United Nations declared in 2004 that the Srebrenica massacre by Bosnian Serb forces was an official act of genocide, for which the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has convicted nearly 80 people. Still, many offenders escaped punishment.

“The idea that the people who did all this damage in Bosnia should have a free pass and a new shot at life is just obscene to me,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement historian Michael MacQueen told the Times Saturday.

The more than 120,000 Bosnian refugees who applied for American visas in the mid 1990s were required at the time to disclose military service and other allegiances that might suggest war crime involvement. However, immigration officials relied largely on the applicants’ word and did little to verify their statements.